Contact Information

Biography

Julie A. Kientz (pronounced like "Keentz") is an Associate Professor in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She directs the Computing for Healthy Living and Learning Lab, is active in the Design, Use, Build (dub) alliance, and has adjunct appointments in The Information School and Computer Science & Engineering. Dr. Kientz's primary research areas are in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, and Health Informatics. Her research focuses on understanding and reducing the user burdens of interactive technologies for health and education through the design of future applications. She has designed, developed, and evaluated mobile, sensor, and social applications for helping individuals with sleep problems, parents of young children tracking developmental progress, individuals with visual impairments, people who want to quit smoking, and special education teachers working with children with autism. Her primary research methods involve human-centered design, technology development, and a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. Dr. Kientz received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008. She was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2009, named an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 in 2013, and was given the UW College of Engineering Faculty Research Innovator award in 2014.

News

I will be out of the office for most of Summer 2015 until Fall 2016 due to parental leave followed by a year-long sabbatical. I will not be teaching, taking on new students, starting new projects, or accepting service requests during this time, but will be working on some big and exciting projects!

I am serving as CHI 2016 Subcommittee Chair for the Specific Apps Health & Kids split along with Chris Quintana.

We had two papers accepted at this year's Interaction Design & Children conference in Boston. Kiley Sobel presented research on inclusive play between children with and without disabilities, and Alexis Hiniker presented on a study of how preschool children learn to use gestures on tablets.

Our lab has two papers at CHI 2015 in Seoul this year. Matt Kay presented a paper on the acceptability of accuracy in sensing systems, and Alexis Hiniker presented work on studying the use of mobile phones at playgrounds.